


Blistering, Living, Alive

by 7_11



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Azula and Zuko role swap, Cultural Differences, Family Dynamics, Gen, Good Azula (Avatar), Platonic Relationships, Self-Indulgent, Toph and Azula find solidarity in nicknaming everyone they meet, What-If, kind of, sometimes found family is legitimately finding your family, the plot exists... I just refuse to acknowledge it, this is just me giving Zuko a 3 year long gap year as a farmer, we get to skip her redemption and go straight to her lovingly bullying everyone she meets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27616249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7_11/pseuds/7_11
Summary: Azula may not be as good a firebender as her brother, but at least she hasn't been posing as an impoverished Earth Kingdom farmer in a rural mountain village for 3 years.
Relationships: Azula & The Gaang (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 154





	1. A Brief Stint in Penury

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, I had 'planned' to write this in Zuko's POV, but I don't think I have the energy to manifest whatever the fuck he thinks about.

She finds Zuko living in a village cut out of the peaks at the tip of the Earth Kingdom. His hair tied in a loose bun at the back of his neck, a green scrap of woven hemp holds it together. They lock eyes after two minutes of her staring daggers into his sweaty forehead.

“Truly deplorable,” she says as he wipes the hair from his face.

“Mèi mei,” his teeth are bright in the afternoon sun. Azula puts a hand up in front of her eyes, shielding herself from his, _cough_ , smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“It’s been three years, yes,” she responds. Zuko shifts the bamboo basket at his back from shoulder to shoulder. The chicken sitting inside makes an awful noise.

“So… What’s brought you to my humble village?”

Uncle had more of an influence than she had originally thought.

“Get that peasant garb off of your malnourished body, we have a war to win Zuzu.”

As usual, the Avatar’s timing leaves many things to be desired, as he has chosen _now_ as the perfect time to land his oversized platypus in the middle of the stone walkway. 

“He’s a flying bison, not a platypus! I don’t even know what a platypus is!” is the first thing she hears from the pack of chattering fox pheasants that had bitten the platypus’ saddle and never fallen off. 

“Woah, is that your brother?” it’s the same voice. Her brother lifts a hand and gives a jaunty wave.

“Silence thing one, Zuko was just agreeing to coming with us.”

“Is that the _Avatar_?” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Zuko’s sat across from her, hands around his knees. The chicken was apprehended by thing three, who affectionately renamed it ‘Ping’, before regaling his eighteen step plan of luring it into a false sense of security before it became dinner. ‘Ping’ lays an egg off the side of the saddle and it tumbles through the air and out of sight. 

“This is Zuko. Unfortunately, he inherited none of the social grace of a future Fire Lord. But what he lacks in polish and tact he makes up for in…” she waves a manicured hand in a circle, “know-how.”

“You flatter me,” Zuko says as he untwists his arms from his legs to flop against the edge of the saddle. 

“Yes I do, now you are in debt to me.”

She allows her lips to lift at the corners, matching her brother’s. Thing two and thing three look resigned.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When she first told the fox pheasants she had a brother, there had been an undeniable backlash. Mainly thing three complaining about how “he had just finished fixing one of Ozai’s children, how is he ever going to be able to do it again”. Azula had let out a scoff before nipping the bud of a conversation she predicted would have stretched past four minutes, “My brother is incompetent, apart from his combat skills he has little to offer. He will be easy to convince, like dangling a sleeping dragon in front of a general.”

“So, translating from Azula language, he’s basically the better her,” Thing three had said, his shoulders had slumped even more than usual, arms lax beside him. 

“I thought Azula was the best firebender?” Thing two had replied. Her fingers had been running through Azula’s hair for eight minutes with only six braids to show for it. Pathetic. 

“Zuzu only started bending at seven but he is, and I say this with great reluctance, against all odds, better than me. Ridiculous, I know,” Azula had said, the grimace on her face most obvious. 

Seemingly haven woken from her nap just to push her way into the conversation, thing four had thrown her copper piece in: “Zappy finally admitting she’s not the best at something, next a flying boar is going to swoop right past Appa.” 

Thing one turned his head from the cloud cover, reigns lifting with his arms. “Y’know that’s funny Toph because your family crest is actually a-”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“I think I was expecting someone a lot more pointy,” thing three says as he flails his arms around like a sad sprig of feathered seaweed.

Now that her brother looks less like he just ran for his life up a vertical slope, she can finally get a good look at him. His skin is probably the most notable difference, she thinks. Where he used to be pale, barely so much as touched by the rays of Agni’s light, he now wears a healthy tan, covered in a light dust of moles. His right eye has sharpened from age, a defined and elegant phoenix shape. His left is basically a slit, surrounded by warping and sagging skin. Although the burn’s pigment is the same as the rest of his face, it drags the corner of his mouth down making it forever noticeable. The last time she saw it it was a bright angry red and he was drugged with opium in the healers quarters. She watches him twist his sleeves and pluck at his collar, and her eyes follow down his neck to the rest of the burn staining his entire shoulder and forearms. The scar is ugly, no doubt about it, and a scar in the Fire Nation is never any good to have. 

At least when she looks at him, she sees a little less of father and a lot more of Zuko.

And she hadn’t even thought about the oily nest on his head. She’ll sick thing two on him when they finally reach the navy ship again.

“I can be pointy,” her brother mopes.

“We had to travel a long way for you Zuzu, you better be grateful,” Azula says. “The Southern Water Chief is waiting for us at the mouth of the Angara, just out of the way of the sea serpents.”

“Can we maybe turn this sky yak around? I think I’m having some regrets,” he says in return. Thing one lets out an offended noise. Always with the dramatics.

Azula waggles her pointer finger and clicks her tongue. “Uh uh uh brother. Boy Avatar has to learn firebending from someone and we both know I’m not the camaraderie type.”

Zuko goes pale, seemingly shrinking like a measly scaled mouse when faced by the beam of a candle. Thing four sticks a mud and dust-covered foot in his lap and wiggles it around. 

It’s like a zoo around here.


	2. Lessons in Sailing Knots and How to Talk to Estranged Relatives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW:  
> \- mild colourism  
> \- mention of a non-graphic war crime (genocide of the Air Nomads)
> 
> FYI this whole fic is just me exploring my own personal headcanons about the atla world! if you aren't into more realistic portrayals including ones that delve into real-world issues, specifically in East Asia, I would not suggest continuing! The first chapter was kind of a bad representation of how I wanted the rest of the fic to go but I can never stop myself from using characters to tell shitty jokes. also we are travelling into canon rewrite territory but I promise I will try to stray from a boring run through of events. Some things will be different because of Azula & Zuko though!
> 
> feel free to ask questions about my headcanons I would literally fall in love with you if you did. 
> 
> thanks for reading!

They have one week of planning with the Southern Water Tribe’s military force until they reach the peak of Crescent Island and split. 

Thing one sits at the head of the table, his chin barely makes it over the lip of the edge. Azula watches in disdain as he kicks his boots back and forth, thumping the table every second of the meeting. Her group (the collective of the things and Zuko) sit opposite to the Southern Water Chief and his most trusted associates. 

The lunchroom of their stolen Fire Nation ship is freezing cold, it’s almost as if instead of a grey metal, the walls were fashioned out of thinnest ice sheet in existence. Azula’s seat next to Zuko lets her leech off of his emanating body heat, something she never had the need of learning as Caldera’s humid air made for consistent warmth throughout the year. 

They finish the plans and calculations for the day of the black sun five days into their journey. Zuko barely says a word in any of the meetings. They decide on a plan that utilises both siblings intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Caldera in a full stealth mission complete with a pathetic but big-enough-to-be-believable invasion attempt. It’s left open ended, regardless of Azula’s endless scorn. Apparently they’ll have time to iron everything out when they reconvene at the Black Cliffs (she doubts it). It’s hard being one of the two only people in the room who has actually been to an official war meeting and even then, Zuko’s eyes are focused on anywhere but the maps and scrolls drawn out over the table. The Southern Water Chief at _most_ probably had meetings with his crew to discuss whatever their role in the war was, but listening to their jokes for days on end makes it easy to dismiss that possible experience. 

She catches her brother on the sixth day of their sail sitting on the edge of the rails at the bow of the ship. 

“You perch like a gilled raven,” she says to his back, still covered in scrappy patches of green fabric, hair in a loose tail at his neck. Zuko’s shoulders creep upwards. She continues, “maybe someone told you otherwise, but you’re allowed to speak. My title is but a title on this rustbucket.” 

“I kinda thought I’d die in the Earth Kingdom,” he finally responds, voice muffled in the winds. Azula hears his heels bang against the metal of the hull as he swings his feet. 

“Well, that’s still an option. When we kill our father we’ll have free range of all the military transportation. You can die all you want.” 

It must have been the wrong thing to say, as Zuko shakes his head a little and mumbles something completely incoherent. It’s weird how much he’s changed, she guesses she should have expected he wouldn’t’ve stayed the same predictable, clueless and rash brother who left her in the palace.

“Training?” She hears. Zuko’s finally facing her so she lets her eyes narrow in a challenging stare. Dark grey clouds tumble through the skies above. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The platypus sits in the waves of the ocean, a thick chain looped around its harness connected to the ship so it can get dragged along behind the stern (“The moving water will clean his fur!”), freeing up the main deck for a spar. She stands across from Zuko in casual robes, a thin red silk shirt and dark pants that she found in one of the private berths, while he hasn’t bothered to change from his heavy cotton. 

They take a second to bow, both to each other and then to the line of people watching their every move.

Her hair is frazzled half an hour into their spar, thick black strands spiking up from her scalp. The dry thunderstorm above their heads has magnified greatly, booming noises filling the space between each swoosh of flames. More thunder and soon a crack of bright white fizzles out before it hits the film of the sea. Azula twists her yellow flames around her in a vortex as she watches her brother. 

It seems that he’s kept up with his training during his galavant across the globe, his knees are perfectly bent and legs in a simple but increasingly effective form. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows fully revealing the patches of melted skin that cover him. She watches as thing three’s eyes rove over the scars in what can only be interpreted as a twisted sense of wonder. One can only imagine what the Water Tribes are teaching their young if _that’s_ his reaction to the marks of a tyrant. 

Zuko let’s his bright blue flames slink down his body, dripping like honey onto the deck. Azula’s vortex expands as she shifts her leg back and crouches down even further, one arm stilling above her head while the other guards her face and neck. Blue fire sparkles on the metal, meek and fluttering in the wind as it spreads towards her. It’s a tense three minutes of neither of them attacking, just Zuko slowly encroaching on her half of the deck. 

But just as subtly as he started it (which is not at all. He really needs to stop twitching his arms so much), the match finishes by her brother’s hand. She sees his neck angle to the left and soon she’s kicking up from her stance, using her yellow flames as a jumping point from underneath her boots. They boost her upwards past the crows nest but Zuko’s flames reach higher as he quickly chops a hand upwards through the air, beckoning his weak fire into an inferno. Her flame cannot sustain itself forever and she drifts, trying to angle her descent towards the edge of the boundaries. It’s no use, she realises, the rectangle of the area they agreed on is flooded with fire, burning almost white. The flames keep frothing up like sea foam, heaving until they reach where she’s blasting her fire as she struggles to stay afloat. Although one would never be able to call her spark weak, she’s at a heavy disadvantage and her bending suffers greatly at such a higher altitude. As soon as her soles touch a wisp of the blue, Zuko’s barrage is swiped away, leaving a maze of melted marks on the metal of the deck.

“You fight like an Earthbender. I should’ve expected you’d be different,” she says, after their mess of a crew shouted out in applause (or fear, she’s not picky). 

“I think, Azula,” he starts in response, “that you keep assuming we know each other. I know we were all friendly when you took me from my home a few days ago, but I think you keep expecting me to be the same as you.” 

“Well now you’re just being an idiot,” she says, “I know we’re not the same, dummy. I just thought you’d be a little more,” she mimes an explosion with her hand. “You were all too excited to catch a ride with us out of your so-called ‘home’ and now you barely even say a word! What happened to the Zuzu who yelled at poor grandfather about the state of the gardens.”

“We don’t know each other anymore,” he says again.

“Don’t be an idiot Zuzu,” she finishes eventually. Her mouth tastes sour. The crew lining the edges of the training deck watch in silence, cut intermittently by the continued rolling of thunder.

At dinner no one mentions the conversation. Azula watches Zuko across from her as he digs his spoon into his soup and uses his chopsticks to pick out the chunks of egg (she hates to admit it but Ping the chicken has been exceedingly helpful in the journey to edible food).

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Fragility in the Fire Nation is a sign of nobility, power and control. A firebender keeps shoji screens in their house but never lights them aflame. A noble wears a silk hanfu, its long train trailing the ground, but never flicks a spark near it. A woman keeps a thousand secrets, all about her family, but never speaks a single word, for she can never be seen with tears running down her face like cracks in porcelain. The constant hazard of looming destruction, of a fire that is too large to not consume the islands in one swallow, allows one to indulge in the frivolities of a nation wracked by its favourite element. It’s hard not to learn a certain kind of attitude when Caldera was erected from the jaws of a breathing volcano. A craftsman chisels at an ice sculpture as it melts from the heat of the air. A soldier launches a firework at the Eastern Air Temple with the touch of a flaming palm and the spark lights the gunpowder barrel behind her.

And although fraility is espoused, any mark, any evidence that something has been damaged is deeply rejected. A soldier comes back and she is covered, from the tips of her ears to the balls of her feet, in melted flesh. Her parents set her up a room in their greenhouse in the corner of the garden. She’s told only to raise her head when Agni is able to open his million eyes in the dark of the night. 

The framework of this ideology, Azula realises, stretches far beyond the confines of Caldera City. Pale and unmarred skin is a mark of class even in the rural off-shoots of the Fire Nation, even in the colonies only decades old. And the island of Huojin at the far east of the nation is anything but an outlier.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Zuko and her act as Aang’s parents.

It’s the obvious choice when thing three thinks every name in the Fire Nation is related to fire and his sister still has the cheeks of an overfed 4 year old. 

They all ignore the horned elephant in the room. (Her brother is just pale enough to pass as an overeager teenager just returning from a swimming trip.)

Sure, neither she nor Zuko have been to an outer-island school before, sure they look scarily related and _sure_ both of them are extremely teen-looking, but with a little stumbling around through their packs and possessions they could probably pull it off. It seems Azula will just have to put in a bit of work to get the charade off the ground and hope it doesn’t fall on its face due to Zuko’s cumbersome improvisation abilities. 

She grabs one of the feathered pads from a ripped futon and stuffs it under her loose hanging hanfu before letting her hair down. Pregnancy always gives some sort of leeway when actively opposing authority. Something twinges inside of her as she brushes her top knot out before tying it at the base of her neck, a suitable place for someone of the islands, she thinks. Zuzu sits beside her, face blank in the reflection of the pond as he rips through his (now significantly cleaner) mass of hair with a comb. He’s wearing red robes now, for the first time in probably 3 years, and he shifts and fidgets in a way she has only witnessed in sand wolves with teeth too big for their mouths. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to wear clothes normally. You spend a few years off in the mountains and forget your whole childhood? Honestly Zuzu,” she lets her mouth form a familiar smirk as she adjusts the last ribbon around her waist.

He quirks the corner of his lips at her before spiking a simple golden zan through his bun. 

Ping clucks on in the background and they make their way towards town.

The headmaster squints at all three of them, eyes narrowing until his pupils darken to a deep black.

“Thank you for coming Mr. and Mrs…?”

“Zeng Li,” Zuko answers, his face unexpectedly blank.

“Mo Bingbing,” Azula lays a hand on thing one’s shoulder, digging her nails in just _so_ , so that he’s compelled to give the headmaster a childish smile instead of sitting there like a limp beetle ferret. All three of them dip their heads in a shallow bow.

“Mr. Zeng and Mrs. Mo, your son, a student for only two days, has managed to uproot the uniform rules and beliefs we at this school abide by. He's created anarchy in the schoolyard, egging on one of our best pupils, disrupted our teachings in shameful ways multiple times and was also reported spreading baseless rumours in history class.”

“Kuzon’s always been a bit of a troublemaker,” Zuko says in reply, shoving his hand out to ruffle thing one’s buzzed hair, fingers brushing awfully close to the loosely tied headband over his arrow. 

“Yes," the headmaster's eyes open wider, a trembling lip hides behind his facial hair. "Well, this is your official warning, if he acts up even one more time, he’ll be hitched up onto the next carriage to reform school,” the headmaster rises from his seat, “by which I mean the coal mines. I’m sure you’ll know all about that,” he continues, casting a dark eye over Zuko’s scarred hand on thing one. “Are we clear?” he finishes, gaze finally rising to meet Azula’s. 

She gives him a scornful look when he turns back around, “Thank you headmaster, we’ll make sure Kuzon gets the proper bettering at home.”

“That’s what I like to hear."

When he sends them off, a pitying stare is directed at the back of Azula's head.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Azula drags thing one back to the cave by his collar.

“No more school for you old man,” she snarls. “We have to leave, now.”

Zuzu trails behind them, his feet scuffle, scraping the rocks in a way that leaves dust not only on his shoes, but the front of his hanfu too. 

“You’re always so serious Azula! I’m not ready to leave yet, I’m finally getting to spend time with normal kids my age!”

She stares down at him, hands digging at her hips at the ingress of the cave. The others are sitting around a campfire, heads turned towards them and conversation dying. Ping crows a dreadful song in the pause between thing one’s declaration and her own response.

“Fun doesn’t exist in the Fire Nation,” Zuko answers, a grin cut into his face.

“Fun especially doesn’t exist when my stupid brother gives the headmaster an eyeful of your _very distinctive tattoos_.”

They leave the town of Huojin on the platypus that very night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary:  
> \- Hanfu/漢服 = the umbrella term for traditional clothing worn by the Han Chinese people  
> \- Zan/簪 = a basic Chinese hairpin/hair stick used to stabilise a hairstyle  
> \- Huojin/火烬 = from the simplified characters fire/火 and ember/余烬
> 
> I've been using this map [here](https://external-preview.redd.it/D6COo3YmmcBYv5zwCHMdZO4kUjpczWZjNc-Td7cHH20.jpg?auto=webp&s=96e43204a9d64cee57ed9b0acda8f2e05106c180) to chart their journey! Zuko's Earth village is in the south of the snowy mountains at the top of the Earth Kingdom and the river they travel down is at the top of the lake that Serpent's Pass dissects, after that they follow the canon route. Don't ask me how they got past the serpents :)

**Author's Note:**

> God writing is so hard, why am I doing this.


End file.
